Sharing computers with multi-channel sound or voice chat

[Trenloe]

As cheap as computers are these days, the best thing is just to use a computer for each person, but the player(s) believe it will help the social experience if they are sharing a workstation.

They're not a couple by any chance?

[Dakadin]

I used a conference mic for a situation where 2 people were remote while the core group of 5 were all at the same location. The 5 that were local all had headphones and we just left the mic on. It kept the remote people included in the general banter that they were missing when everyone had their own mics.

[Bidmaron]

Dakadin: What kind of splitter did you use to drive 5 headphones (or were they on separate computers)?

Trenloe: I could see a couple saying that, but, no, its my brother (long time player) and his son.

[Dakadin]

That was with 5 separate computers but I have done 2 people on one computer using a headphone splitting adapter that I bought for a few dollars.

[Bidmaron]

Thanks, Dakadin.

[Blacky]

The easiest way is probably an USB Headset (with microphone of course). Player A use the regular (USB or not) headset, player B use the new USB headset.

Why USB? Apart from it being simpler to set up, it include its own “audio chipset”. Meaning you can on the computer say this instance of that software use audio chipset A for player A, and this other instance uses audio chipset B for player B.

But check each and every last software you intend to use. In theory, any software that handle audio should have an option to choose which hardware to output the audio, and most software should handle multiple instances.

Since I'm guessing player B won't spend his life on someone else's computer, buying a headset won't be lost, he will need it with his future computer.

Nevermind, that way you'll get problems with push to talk (or any kind of voice input detection). So I concur, headsets for both players but one table microphone is probably the best.

Or, use another computer like device, like a Smartphone to handle VOIP for the second player.

[Bidmaron]

Thanks, Blacky. I was hoping you'd weigh in.